A thirteen-year-old boy dies in a fire, only to be return
to earth as a thirty-three year old man in this cute,
fairly entertaining, but wholly inconsequential fantasy
melodrama from director Yoon Tae-Young. Although generally
amusing, sloppy plot contrivances and huge leaps in
logic make one wonder if a much better film was left
on the cutting room floor.

Review by
Calvin
McMillin:

In the spirit of other
body transference flicks like 1988's Big and
2004's 13 Going on 30, director Yoon Tae-Young's
A Boy Who Went to Heaven explores much of the
same territory, although in this case, the setting is
1980s Korea. After a fantastical prologue that's infinitely
more prophetic than viewers will first realize, the
film begins in 1982, focusing on Nae-Mo (Kim Kwan-Woo),
a thirteen year old boy who lives with his single mother,
the owner of the town's watch repair shop. Realizing
the hardship of his own life, Nae-Mo resolves to marry
a single mother when he gets older, much to the consternation
of his mother. In truth, Nae-Mo has never met his biological
father; a simple black and white photograph is the only
evidence of his existence. First, Nae-Mo's mother tells
him that his father is in jail, but later, after a supposed
prison visit to her husband, she instructs Nae-Mo to
consider the man dead. She is clearly distraught by
their last encounter, and, quite unexpectedly, she commits
suicide not long afterwards.
After her death, Nae-Mo
is allowed to live alone in his mother's house unsupervised.
Why he isn't shipped off to an orphanage or forced to
live with relatives is unclear, but whatever the case,
Nae-Mo's solitary existence gets a lift when a comic
book rental shop opens up in place of his mother's old
business. The shop's owner is Boo-Ja (Yeom Jeong-Ah),
a beautiful single mother to Gi-Chul, a little boy several
years younger than Nae-Mo. Seeing an opportunity to
make his dream come true, Nae-Mo resolves to "take
care" of them, protecting Gi-Chul from bullies
and sending anonymous love letters to Boo-Ja. But just
as her secret admirer is set to reveal himself and propose
marriage (promising to wait until he's old enough),
fate intervenes as a blazing fire breaks out in the
local movie theatre. In the ensuing chaos, Gi-Chul gets
separated from his mother, and it's up to Nae-Mo to
save the little boy - an act of bravery that ultimately
proves fatal.
However, Nae-Mo does get
a reprieve of sorts. Two angels (one assumes, anyway)
show up to collect Nae-Mo's soul, but realize there
may have been a mistake. One chart says he's destined
to die at thirteen, while the other says his expiration
date is set for the ripe old age of ninety-three. Although
one would expect this sort of problem would have been
worked out beforehand, the plot calls for the angels
to hatch a solution: they'll resurrect Nae-Mo, but age
him to be a thirty-three year old, complete with his
thirteen year old mind entact. Subsequently, he will
age one year for each day that passes until he's ninety-three.
Tragically, that means that Nae-Mo only has sixty days
to live. While all this amounts to some fairly interesting
rules for the plot to follow, it's important to realize
that they also make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
What makes even less sense is the fact that Nae-Mo doesn't
physically age each day as they said he would; he only
really begins making a dramatic transformation to retirement
age in the last few days of his life. Illogical plot
contrivances aside, Nae-Mo comes back to earth, this
time played by Park Hae-Il. In order to keep up the
charade, he pretends to be his own father and pursues
a relationship with Boo-Ja. After some comical miscues,
a real romance develops, but with no happy ending in
sight...or is there?
If one doesn't think too
hard about A Boy Who Went to Heaven, it makes
for an entertaining diversion. Both Park Hae-Il and
Kim Kwan-Woo turn in likeable performances as the older
and younger Nae-Mo respectively. The developing relationship
between the mature, sexually aggressive Boo-Ja, and
the naive "older" Nae-Mo makes for some entertaining
byplay, but it's a bit strange how the man/boy's indoctrination
into the world of sexual maturity is glossed over both
by the film's "innocent tone" and its hyper-stylized
fantasy elements. It's a beautifully shot film, with
plenty of CGI enhancements added here and there, but
ultimately, it's that same glossiness - particularly
in the filmmaker's lack of concern for detail or consistency
in plot - that proves to be rather off-putting upon
close inspection.
For instance, one of the
better parts of the film involves the newly resurrected
Nae-Mo catching up with his angelic father, who is invisible
to others. The idea of a boy finally getting to meet
and talk with his father is an intriguing one, and it
gets explored oh-so briefly, as it is dropped from the
narrative almost as soon as it is introduced, only reappearing
once more in order to throw Nae-Mo's mental state in
doubt by the outside public. For every additional plot
quibble I could add, it's easy to see how one could
argue that "It's all fantasy," and thus shouldn't
be made to fit into any sort of logic. But really, that's
no excuse; creating arbitrary rules or simply not following
the rules and logic one sets up in the movie is just
plain sloppy filmmaking. If a film is going to operate
under certain fantastical parameters, then it needs
to establish an internal logic that not only makes sense,
but is consistently adhered to throughout. But when
a film set in the early eighties references Demi Moore
and Ashton Kutcher, clearly something is wrong. Considering
the sixteen deleted scenes on the DVD, one has to wonder
if perhaps a better film, or at least one more fully
fleshed out found itself lying on the cutting room floor.
That's not to say that
A Boy Who Went to Heaven is a bad movie per se.
In fact, if you're interested in the concept of a kid
trapped in an older person's body or just have a particular
affinity for Park Hae-Il and/or Yeom Jeong-Ah, you could
do a whole lot worse than to check this film out. When
it comes to innocuous fluff, A Boy Who Went to Heaven
is one of the more positive examples. It's cute, fun,
and a little bit naughty. Still, be sure to check your
brain at the door. (Calvin McMillin, 2006)